Your Unemployed Daughter

photo credit: Arnoooo

What, pray tell, does it mean when the banks run the media?

Per our old pal Keith Kelly:

Thanks to bankruptcy and restructuring, JP Morgan Chase essentially owns Reader’s Digest Association, Source Interlink Media, and American Media Inc., making the bank the nation’s largest media company. If you totaled the revenues of the three companies, they would reach $5.04 billion—more than Hearst and Condé Nast combined. (Time Inc., previously considered the country’s largest media entity, boasted revenues of $4.6 billion in 2008.)

Is it wrong that this terrifies me even more than McKinsey’s Condé-tation? Apparently not:

JP Morgan, GE, and other major lenders to the media industry … are more likely to want to bring in strong restructuring or turnaround-oriented management, clean up the business and balance sheet, perhaps ride out the downturn a bit, and then sell off parts or all of the business to new strategic owners or private equity.

It was cool when they took over the WaMu on my corner; shorter walk to deposit my (occasional) checks and all. But now I just keep having nightmares about annual reports. Or worse, nothing at all.